The Times of London
The Times is a leading, and well respected, British daily newspaper founded in 1785 as The Daily Universal Register, changing its name to The Times in 1788. Nicknamed "The Thunderer", it is regarded as the newspaper of the British Establishment and traditionally follows the (often liberal) government line, sometimes embarrassingly so, as with its editorial support of appeasement in the 1930s. The paper was closed down by an industrial dispute between December 1978 and November 1979.
Since 1981, The Times and associated titles have been owned by News Corporation, a giant global mainstream media conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch, who owns newspapers and television stations around the world, including The Sun (UK), Sky TV (UK), Fox TV (USA), Fox News (USA) and Fox Movie Studios (USA). This sale (according to a prominent journalist at the time on the paper, Robert Fisk) occurred after a strike which convinced the previous owner to sell. Fisk afterward left the paper for liberal newspaper The Independent, citing Murdoch (probably his bias) as a cause. In 1986 the newspaper editorial and production facilities were moved from central London (near Fleet Street) to a new site at Wapping in east London, where modernised plant and working methods were to be employed. This prompted a year-long strike by printworkers, accompanied by picket-line violence, but production of the newspaper was never completely interrupted.